Charles R. Anderson, Ph.D. is a materials physicist, self-owned, a benevolent and tolerant Objectivist, a husband and father, the owner of a materials analysis laboratory, and a thinking individualist. The critical battle of our day is the conflict between the individual and the state. We must be ever vigilant and constant defenders of the equal sovereign rights of the individual to life, liberty, property, self-ownership, and the personal pursuit of happiness.

Among the issues most commonly discussed are individuality, the rights of the individual, the limits of legitimate government, morality, history, economics, government policy, science, business, education, health care, energy, and man-made global warming evaluations. My posts are aimed at intelligent and rational individuals, whose comments are very welcome.

"No matter how vast your knowledge or how modest, it is your own mind that has to acquire it." Ayn Rand

"Observe that the 'haves' are those who have freedom, and that it is freedom that the 'have-nots' have not." Ayn Rand

"The virtue involved in helping those one loves is not 'selflessness' or 'sacrifice', but integrity." Ayn Rand

24 May 2005

The sexuality of a thinking person is as complexly individual as any aspect of our character. Its basis in our individual biochemistry, nervous system, knowledge, emotional experience, imagination, courage of expression, and history of choices allows the development of a bewildering complexity. The resulting richness of our sexuality contributes greatly to highly differentiating us as individuals, which means it is a key component of our individuality. As such, the individual nature of our sexuality frequently is subject to attack by those who despise expressions of individuality. That which is individual is likely to be unique and valued by its living, individual possessor. This is a barrier to those who want to submerge our individuality in equality or to those who wish to diminish the value of life in favor of a vague afterlife. Our individual sexuality is assaulted by both the liberals and the conservatives in America today.

If one really wants to come to grips with the individuality of people, one must understand our sexuality. Unfortunately, it is widely thought to be impolite and unsafe to honestly discuss our sexuality. In so far as it is discussed, few people will venture to explain to others what they best know about sexuality: what they know about themselves by virtue of introspection. It is not helpful that we cannot quote the introspective evaluations of others either, since these are rarely shared with us and are probably often untruthful given the pressure to conform sexually. Consequently, discussions are generally carried out only in terms of what is known from scientific studies. Usually, such studies are likely only to reveal the more common traits in people's sexuality. The more subtle variations are hard or impossible to detect as statistically significant. The result is that much of the individuality of those studied is unobserved.

Thus, a comparison of heterosexual males and homosexual males may reveal biochemical differences evidenced by genetic trends, actual chemical differences in hormones, different reactions to chemicals such as pheromones, and differences in the structure and functionality of neural systems and brains. In general, there may be correlations of such property differences when comparing heterosexuals to homosexuals. Indeed, there seems to be substantial recent progress in medical studies examining the biochemical differences which correlate well with sexual expressions as heterosexual or homosexual. However, these correlations may neither be necessary nor sufficient. This is harder to demonstrate. In addition, any choices made by the exercise of free will will be harder to detect scientifically than will be chemical differences. Any role that choice and imagination may play will tend to be overlooked. This does not mean that such factors are not significant. Indeed, they are probably responsible for much of the individuality of our sexuality.

An interesting suggestion that knowledge, experience, and imagination can play an important role in human sexuality may lie in the apparent fact that some people are bisexual. Of course, there are many heterosexuals and homosexuals who maintain that there is no such thing as a bisexual. I suspect that they can at best say that they themselves are not bisexual and it is not clear that many would do that honestly. I do not think it is wise to call everyone who claims to be bisexual a liar. If heterosexuals and homosexuals tend to respond as they do to others on the basis of different levels of various hormones and different responses to pheromones, for instance, then how can it be assumed that people do not differ in these chemical levels and responses to such a degree that there is a wide continuum of chemically-directed responses to others with respect to sexual interest and attraction? On the face of it, it would seem more probable than not that there are people who are chemically influenced to be strongly heterosexual, slightly heterosexual, thoroughly bisexual, slightly homosexual, and completely homosexual. This is what we should be prepared to expect unless we see strong evidence develop to the contrary. It is not as though people are always under 5 feet tall or over 6 feet tall! Our heights are distributed over a range and it is likely that our sexual response mechanisms are also.

Why is it that homosexuality truly frightens many people? If one were a member of a small tribe surrounded by powerful, war-like enemies, as the Israelites were 3,000 years ago, suppressing homosexuality may have seemed to make sense. Afterall, every new birth in the tribe meant the possibility of having another warrior to stand up against the tribe's fearsome foes. Hence a taboo against spilling seed upon the ground may have appeared useful to everyone's survival. This may be the reason for the Bible and those who are still unable to understand the world in terms of science having a bias against homosexuals and bisexuals. But in the face of what is known scientifically today and the weakening of belief in and the applicability of the Bible, how is the continuing strong bias to be understood? Why the fear? I suspect it rises from the introspective knowledge that many people have that they themselves are not 100% solid heterosexuals and they are afraid that they cannot hide that fact unless they very strongly maintain the taboo against homosexuality. In fact, the feelings against homosexuality have long been clearly those associated with unreasoning taboos.

Now, interestingly, homosexuality is not as fearsome as bisexuality. First, homosexuality is such a strong attraction to one's own sex that it is probably mostly determined by the biochemistry of the individual. Since only a small fraction of the population is homosexual, most individuals easily know that they are not homosexual and hence they have little to fear from it. What many more people are afraid of is an attraction to someone of their own sex even though they are attracted to members of the opposite sex. This will only apply to that part of the population with a biochemistry which is not very strongly oriented toward the opposite sex. One of the most interesting aspects of the lives of such people would be the fact that they are much more in control of their choices sexually. They can conform to a sexual mode which is wholly heterosexual, without giving up sex in its entirety. They may not be as happy as they might be due to abstaining from sex with a desired member of their own sex, but they may be happier than someone abstaining from all sex. This makes it reasonably practical to conform to society's accepted mores.

However, it also leaves them in a state of anywhere from frequent to rare temptation. They know that they have to maintain a tight mental control over their desires. They fear that intimacy with someone of their own sex might become too great for them to control their urges. They establish friendships with those of their own sex in which these friends are incapable of talking about sex, except as a joke. Indeed, one of the better ways to see how widespread bisexual feelings are, is to understand the frustration that drives much of sexual banter. It is also revealing that even good friends can rarely speak frankly to one another about their sexual identity. Of course, this greatly limits the depth of friendship. Another consequence is that people design games with quite rigid rules that they all agree to play in the workplace, at a neighborhood party, in their churches, or at a bar. Each place has its own rigid set of rules for behavior and if one lives within those rules, one's dangerous individuality, especially one's terrifying sexuality, cannot express itself as an indiscretion. These games can have very complex rules and the more complex they are, the more they distract individuals from fully realizing how they constrain their individuality. They keep people so occupied that they are less aware of the frustrations of not identifying themselves as individuals and of not exploring and developing their individuality, including, of course, their sexuality.

Even while science is more and more revealing the biochemistry behind homosexuality and heterosexuality, many people cling adamantly to the notion that people choose to be either homosexual or heterosexual. While those who are homosexual may make no such choice, those who are bisexual may often choose to be heterosexual or occasionally homosexual in practice. This pervading sense of choice would then be understandable. This sense that they have a choice then makes people fear those who have sex with other members of their own sex because it seems to be an exercise of the choice the bisexual has. It seems clear to them that some people are choosing not to conform. This also makes the possibility that they may fall prey to temptation all the greater, especially since they can clearly identify someone of their own sex among homosexuals who might not be repulsed by the idea of having sex with them.

This is a lot of discourse on bisexuality and homosexuality. The issue of homosexuality and its morality has been under much discussion among Objectivists lately. Many of them seem to have handled the issue of homosexuality rationally upon identifying the fact that homosexuals generally have an attraction to members of their own sex which science has revealed to be at least largely biochemical in nature. If it is their nature to be homosexual and given that sex is clearly essential to the happiness of man, then it is clear that there is no immorality in a homosexual person having sex with a member of their own sex. This is great as far as it goes, but it fails to deal with a larger ground on which biochemistry may play a role of varying degree. As that role varies from individual to individual, is it not likely that some individuals are in a position to exercise choices to a much greater degree than others? What then is the morality of their choice to identify, develop, and express their sexuality as a unique individual who may choose to have sex with the opposite sex only, their own sex only, or with both sexes?

If a philosophy based on the value of each individual and with the aim that each individual is right to seek their own happiness cannot discuss this important issue of individuality, then it is not being true to itself. Our philosophy also holds free will to be important as a manifestation of our choice to focus our rational faculty or not. I will state unequivocally that the rational life should be such that bisexuals can express themselves as bisexuals. Nothing else would be rational, since those who are bisexual by nature should seek their happiness and those who are not bisexual are not threatened by force in any way so long as bisexuals seek only consenting adults as sexual partners. While bisexuals may choose to behave as though they are heterosexuals in order to conform to old prejudices, this choice will leave them feeling unfulfilled and cowardly. On the other hand, a bisexual individual may choose to exercise his or her greater freedom of choice in developing their sexuality by applying their rational faculties and their imaginations to the development of a rich and varied sexual life. They might learn much from their enlarged range for experiment with sex. They might enjoy a greater likelihood of finding a rational and good sexual partner, at least in a more rational society than ours, given a reduction in the need to find a rational and good partner only of the opposite sex.

Objectivists, champions of the freedom of choice and the exercise of free will, should rejoice in the choice of bisexuals to assert their nature and seek their complete happiness. Objectivists should be happy to see that some people have the greater freedom to seek out partners based on their moral and intellectual character, without the limitation that they must only be of the opposite sex. Nothing else would be worthy of the life-affirming individualistic philosophy of Objectivism. Bisexuals have the right to happiness, even if it might seem politically inconvenient to both conservatives and socialist egalitarians.

Another reason I have spent so much effort in discussing this issue is because I supported President George Bush in the last election. I think he was a much better choice than his chief opponent, John Kerry. However, President Bush is and was seriously wrong about banning the marriage of homosexuals. While I would argue that governments should be only empowered to issue civil union contracts to any combination of people desiring to live together and share their assets and that government-issued legal contracts should not be called marriage contracts, at least governments should not discriminate against homosexuals. It is wrong. They deserve the same contract as two people of opposite sexes. Marriage is a state of shared values which goes way beyond the realm of government contracts. This essay is a fulfillment of my pledge to stand against President Bush on those issues on which he was wrong, especially those on which he is morally wrong.

Of course, whether one is heterosexual, bisexual, or homosexual, there are many more ways in which each person has distinct sexual characteristics and expressions. Some few people make a strong effort to identify their sexuality through a significant process of exploration and development. Some are inclined to greatly enjoy sex, some are greatly repressed, and some are largely asexual. Some have nervous systems that are very responsive to stimulation either here or there or almost everywhere. Some respond particularly strongly to breasts, some to asses, some to faces, some to legs, some to big hands, some to big penises, some to many combinations of the above. Some fall in love with another's mind as much or more than their body. Some like an evening of preparation such as a nice dinner out with wine, some like spontaneity, some like a mixture of each. Some like kissing lips, breasts, nipples, eye lids, necks, ears, hands, belly buttons, thighs, pussies, penises, asses, and behind the knees. Some like to nibble. Some to scratch lightly, some to caress with the touch of a feather. Some like to spank or to pinch. Some like a blindfold, some to be tied down. Some like costumes. Some like rituals. Some love to share imagined scenes or make up stories. Some feel like worshippers. Some like vaginal sex, some anal, some cunnilingus, some like to be watched, some like to watch, some like threesomes, and some foursomes. Some can love only one person in any given period of their life, while some can love two or more. What could possibly be more an expression of our own individual soul and body than our sexuality?

If we are individualists, then we must stand up for the value of living our lives in a rational manner consistent with our own individual sexuality. We must be free to identify it, develop and refine it, and be able at least to talk about it with our friends. We should also value the great wealth of complexity of sexuality in other individuals and allow them the same sexual freedoms we ourselves require in the quest for our happiness.

Ayn Rand on Morality

"The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live."

Anthem by Ayn Rand

"For the battle they lost can never be lost. For that which they died to save can never perish. Through all the darkness, through all the shame of which men are capable, the spirit of man will remain alive on this earth. It may sleep, but it will awaken. It may wear chains, but it will break through. And man will go on. Man, not men."

James Madison

"Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people, by gradual and silent ancroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations: but, on a candid examination of history, we shall find that turbulence, violence, and abuse of power, by the majority trampling on the rights of the minority have produced factions and commotions, which, in republics, have more frequently than any other cause, produced despotism."

General George S. Patton

"If everyone is thinking alike, then someone isn't thinking."

H. L. Mencken

"The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false face to rule it."

George Orwell

"The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history."

H. L. Mencken

"If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner."

Thomas H. Huxley

"The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority as such. For him, scepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin."

Thomas Jefferson on Democracy

"A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine."

Henry Ford

"Genius is seldom recognized for what it is: a great capacity for hard work."

Thomas Jefferson on Truth

"Truth is great and will prevail if left to herself; that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate; errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them."

"Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear."

Niccolo Machiavelli

"One who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived."

Sherlock Holmes

"It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts." Or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle if you prefer.

Mary McCarthy

"Bureaucracy, the rule of no one, has become the modern form of despotism."

Sen. Tim Wirth, Democrat, Colorado

"We've got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory is wrong, we will be doing the right thing."

Bismarck

"Fools learn by experience, the wise man learns by the experience of others."

Albert Einstein

As Albert Einstein once said about the book "One Hundred Authors Against Einstein": “Why one hundred? If I were wrong, one would be enough.”

Governments are Never Sovereign

Only individuals are sovereign. Governments are either legitimate or illegitimate. They are legitimate only to the extent that they protect the exercise of every individual's right to life; liberty; the ownership of their own mind, body, and labor; their property; their freedom of conscience and association, and the pursuit of their own happiness. No government on Earth is highly legitimate. Most are highly illegitimate.

So sayeth Charles R. Anderson.

Dr. Thomas Sowell is Retiring

"Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it."

"The real minimum wage is zero."

"The most basic question is not what is best, but who shall decide what is best."

"People who have time on their hands will inevitably waste the time of people who have work to do."

"The welfare state is not really about the welfare of the masses, it is about the egos of the elites."

"If you are not prepared to use force to defend civilization, then be prepared to accept barbarism."

Prof. Walter E. Williams on Democracy

"... one of the primary dangers of majority rule is that it confers an aura of legitimacy and respectability to acts that would otherwise be deemed tyrannical."

Ayn Rand on Minorities

"The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights, cannot claim to be defenders of minorities."

Hillary Clinton on Job Creation

"Don't let anybody tell you that, you know, its corporations and businesses that create jobs."

Socialists never want anyone to credit individuals with a productive purpose as the source of their jobs. When the government piles on such heavy taxes and regulations as to prevent job formation, they are always trying to misdirect the people's attention. Hillary has been vigorous in promising more taxes and more major regulations which will make the Obama record of 0.5% annual increases in real per capita GDP look good in comparison.

Frederic Bastiat

"It's impossible to introduce into society a greater evil than this, the conversion of Law into an instrument of PLUNDER."

Ayn Rand

"The number of its adherents is irrelevant to the truth or falsehood of an idea. A majority is as fallible as a minority or as an individual man. A majority vote is not an epistemological validation of an idea." ... "it is important to note the epistemological significance of a free society. In a free society, the pursuit of truth is protected by the free access of any individual to any field of endeavor he may choose to enter." ... "This prevents the formation of any coercive "elite" in any profession -- it prevents the legalized enforcement of a "monopoly on truth" by any gang of power seekers -- it protects the free market place of ideas -- it keeps all doors open to man's inquiring mind."

The catastrophic man-made global warming hypothesis is no exception to these general truths about the right of every individual to examine and evaluate any idea.

Do Not Subordinate Your Mind to the Mind of Another

The vilest form of self-abasement and self-destruction is the subordination of your mind to the mind of another, the acceptance of an authority over your brain, the acceptance of his assertions as facts, his say-so as truth, his edicts as middle-man between your consciousness and your existence.

John Galt in Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

UN Agenda 21, Principle 15

"In order to protect the environment, the precautionary approach shall be widely applied by States according to their capabilities. Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation."

The real operating principle: Neither shall total lack of scientific certainty delay taking action with catastrophic economic effects if one can imagine some environmental degradation.

Dr. Thomas Sowell

"If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labeled a radical 60 years ago, a liberal 30 years ago and a racist today."

"What 'multiculturalism' boils down to is that you can praise any culture in the world except Western culture -- and you cannot blame any culture in the world except Western culture."

"It is so easy to be wrong -- and to persist in being wrong -- when the costs of being wrong are paid by others."

"Intellectuals have trouble remembering that they are not God."

Saul Alinsky

"To say that corrupt means corrupt the ends is to believe in the immaculate conception of ends and principles. The real arena is corrupt and bloody. Life is a corrupting process from the time a child learns to play his mother off against his father in the politics of when to go to bed; he who fears corruption fears life."

It is good to understand what the nihilists think, especially since such politicians as Obama and Hillary admire this man and use his principles for damaging the private sector and Capitalism.

Ronald Reagan

"If no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else?"

A democratic society that needs a much-controlling government to manage the affairs of its People has a People so lacking in character and ability that there is no hope the People can democratically elect leaders of good character and adequate capability. That society is doomed by a self-contradiction. The escape from doom is the development in the People of such character and ability that they shun a much-controlling government.

Aesop

"We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office."

Christine Stewart, Canadian Minister of the Environment

"No matter if the science of global warming is all phony.... climate change provides the greatest opportunity to bring about justice and equality in the world."

What a sad thing is attempted justice without truth.

Aldous Huxley

"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored."

Ayn Rand

"'There are no evil thoughts, Mr. Rearden,' Francisco said softly, 'except one: the refusal to think.'"

Francisco D'Anconia to Hank Rearden in Atlas Shrugged

Frederic Bastiat on the Law

"It has been used to destroy its own objective. It has been applied to annihilating the justice that it was supposed to maintain; to limiting and destroying rights which its real purpose was to respect. The law has placed the collective force at the disposal of the unscrupulous who wish, without risk, to exploit the person, liberty, and property of others. It has converted plunder into a right, in order to protect plunder. And it has converted lawful defense into a crime, in order to punish lawful defense.”

Louis L'Amour in High Lonesome

"Folks talk a lot about the maternal feeling in women, but they say nothing about man's need to protect and care for someone; yet the one feeling is as basic as the other."

"Nor were they free of the images their own minds held of themselves. The man on horseback, the lone-riding man, the lone-thinking man, possessed an image of himself that was in part his own, in part a piece of all the dime novels he had read, for no man is free of the image his literature imposes on him. And the dime novel made the western hero a knight-errant, a man on horseback rescuing the weak and helpless."

Dr. Thomas Sowell

"Today one can literally go from kindergarten to becoming a graduate student seeking a Ph.D., without ever hearing a vision of the world that conflicts with the vision of the left."

"Even liberal professors can be adversely affected by the narrow groupthink that prevails. Without an opposition to keep them on their toes, they can develop sloppy habits of dismissing or even demonizing differing viewpoints, instead of practicing and teaching their students how to come to grips with opposing beliefs."

From Dry Rot in Academia

John Stuart Mill

"In this age, the mere example of nonconformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself a service. Precisely because the tyranny of opinion is such as to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in order to break through that tyranny, that people should be eccentric. Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character was abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigour, and moral courage which it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time."

Josepth Stalin

"We don't let them have ideas. Why would we let them have guns?"

Robert Tracinski

"The way we view the naked human body reflects our view of human nature itself. We portray our bodies in ways that are crude or refined depending on whether we view our souls as crude or refined. And we do the same with the sensuality and the sexual capacity of our bodies. We can view sex and the nude body as a dangerous temptation that draws us away from higher ideals and down into the muck—or we can make it part of those higher ideals. We can make it an expression of a wider lust for life, an expression of the same spirit of aspiration that drives all of our other achievements."

The Three Graces by Antonio Canova

David by Michelangelo

Frederic Bastiat

"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it."

"But how is this legal plunder to be to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime."

Ayn Rand on Excellence

"If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing."

Ayn Rand

"The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody had decided not to see."

Patrick Henry

"No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue; and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles."

H. L. Mencken

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed — and hence clamorous to be led to safety — by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."

Catastrophic man-made global warming is a great example of such alarmism to justify more power for the politicians and bureaucrats.

Thomas Jefferson

"Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add, `within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrants will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual."

Ayn Rand

"Serenity comes from the ability to say 'Yes' to existence. Courage comes from the ability to say 'No' to the wrong choices made by others."

Galileo Galilei

"In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual."

"By denying scientific principles, one may maintain any paradox."

Henry Ford

"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work."

Samuel Adams

"The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution, are worth defending against all hazards: And it is our duty to defend them against all attacks."

The Constitution itself remains a strong defense of our individual rights, but those who want power over our lives have long claimed ridiculous interpretations of the powers it grants to the federal government which they have cemented in irrational precedents. Time after time, the fact that our individual rights are broad and must allow each of us to manage our own lives while we pursue our own chosen values, so long as we do not violate the equal rights of others, is a context ignored.

Thomas Jefferson, 1816

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."

When the government controls the education system, you can be sure the education system will guarantee the ignorance of the people so they may be ruled without the impediment of the people demanding their individual rights.

John C. Goodman

"Closing Off Consumption Opportunities. Just as low-income individuals in their role as producers are increasing[ly] regulated out of income earning opportunities, in their role as consumers they are increasingly regulated out of the market for essential services. In addition to education and housing, they have been regulated out of the market for medical care, transportation and even police protection. For all these essential services, the wealthy turn to the private marketplace. They even employ police officers as off-duty, private guards for their gated communities. The poor are left with public housing, public schools, public transportation, government-provided health care, etc.

The well-off get all the benefits of capitalism. The poor are left with socialism."

Averroes

"An army of philosophers would not be sufficient to change the nature of error and to make it truth."

An army of scientist mercenaries at the service of All-Controlling Government is not sufficient to make the catastrophic man-made global warming hypothesis true either.

Ayn Rand on the Creative Man

"A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others."

Lawrence W. Reed

"It constantly amazes me that defenders of the free market are expected to offer certainty and perfection while government has only to make promises and express good intentions."

Patrick Henry

"The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people; it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government lest it come to dominate our lives and our interests."

Prof. Walter E. Williams

"That initial premise is that each of us owns himself. Stated another way: I am my private property and you are yours. The institution of private property is the right held by the owner of property to keep, acquire, dispose, and exclude from use. The premise of self-ownership determines which human acts are moral or immoral and consistent with that premise. For example, rape, murder, slavery, fraud, and theft are immoral because they violate private property."

Thomas Jefferson

The "sum of good government" is one "which shall restrain men from injuring one another" and "shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement."

The presumption is maximum liberty limited not by the welfare of others, but only by the injunction to do no harm to others.

H. L. Mencken

"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule."

Madison Versus Hitler

"(The Constitution preserves) the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation... (where) the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms." James Madison

"The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by doing so." Adolf Hitler

Frederic Bastiat

"The most urgent necessity is, not that the State should teach, but that it should allow education. All monopolies are detestable, but the worst of all is the monopoly of education."

Mark Twain

"It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled."

This certainly applies to those who believe in the catastrophic man-made global warming alarmists, minimum wage laws, ObamaCare, the ethanol in gasoline mandate, and tying solar and wind power in high percentages to the electric grid.

Prof. Walter E. Williams on White Privilege

"The concept of white privilege, along with diversity and multiculturalism, is part of today's campus craze. .....

The bottom line to this campus nonsense is that "privilege" has become the new word for "personal achievement." ....

Are those who work hard, take risks, make life better for others and become wealthy in the process the people who should be held up to ridicule and scorn? And should we make mascots out of social parasites?"

Albert Einstein

"A foolish faith in authority is the worst enemy of truth."

Prof. John Christy, Climate Scientist

“If it’s not economically sustainable, it’s not sustainable.”

Ayn Rand on Human Progress

"Man's ego is the fountainhead of human progress."

George Orwell

"The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it."

Abbot of Arbroath, Chancellor of Robert the Bruce

"For so long as one hundred of us shall remain alive we shall never in any wise consent to submit to the rule of the English. For it is not for glory we fight, for riches, or for honours, but for freedom alone, which no good man loses but with his life." April 1320, Six years after the Battle of Bannockburn

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

"whoever refuses to obey the general will will be forced to do so by the entire body; this means merely that he will be forced to be free."

If one is told " 'it is expedient for the state that you should die,' he should die."

From The Social Contract, a most emphatic statement of authoritarian collectivism by a profound misanthropist.

Patrick Henry

"The Constitution is NOT an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the PEOPLE to restrain the government -- lest it come to dominate our lives and interest."

Dwight D. Eisenhower

"If all that Americans want is security, they can go to prison. They'll have enough to eat, a bed and a roof over their heads. But if an American wants to preserve his dignity and his equality as a human being, he must not bow his neck to any dictatorial government."

Alexander Hamilton

"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed."

"If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is no recourse left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government."

Milton Friedman

“A major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that it ... gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.”

John Quincy Adams

"Muhammad declared undistinguishing and exterminating war, as a part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind... The precept of the Koran is, perpetual war against all who deny, that Muhammad is the prophet of God."

Justice Robert H. Jackson

"If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein."

This applies to the government-run education system, as well as every other act of government, including its procurements.

Ellsworth Toohey in The Fountainhead

"Don't bother to examine a folly, ask only what it accomplishes."

Ayn Rand's villain giving us insight into the beliefs of the Progressive Elitists and others with beliefs too divorced from reality to be creditable, yet widely believed or propagated.

Thomas Jefferson

"let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution."

Of course this belief implies those great constraints on democracy imposed by the Constitution.

About Me

I enjoy rational analytical conversations, learning from thinking people, and solving problems of science and technology. My perspective is that of an Objectivist with a joyous sense of life, a great appreciation for human complexity, differentiation, and achievement, and a benevolent regard for others. Nothing clarifies understanding like writing about it or trying to teach ideas. A recurring theme is the importance of individuality and the fight for individual rights against the onslaught of the Nanny State and socialism. I wish to live the life of a rational self-managing adult and am amazed that so many others wish to be perpetual children. The fear, envy, and guilt that cause many to yield their individual rights to collectivism are ugly, anti-life emotions. I consistently believe in both the personal and the economic rights of the sovereign individual. As the United States Declaration of Independence says, each of us has the selfish right to our life, our liberty, and our pursuit of happiness. Our mostly ignored Constitution attempts to severely limit the powers of the federal government and to preserve the development and the exercise of our individual conscience.

Robert Tracinski

"The real minimum wage is zero. Actually, it’s less than zero: the real “minimum wage” is going into debt just to have a shot at doing the work you love."

I went hugely into debt to set up my materials analysis laboratory and paid myself only $10,000 in the first year and even less in the Obama Recession years of 2010 - 2012.

Obama

“When what you’re doing doesn’t work for 50 years, it’s time to try something new.” 2015 State of the Union Address

So, we should ditch Big Government, government health care, The War on Poverty, The War on Drugs, Social Security, the Federal Reserve, government-run education, the Davis-Bacon Act, the Merchant Marine Act of 1920 (the Jones Act), and all expansionist interpretations of the Interstate Commerce and the Taxation Clauses of the Constitution upon this Obama Principle of Failure.

Louis L'Amour

"when in doubt, sit down and think. It is only the mind of man that has lifted him above the animals." Evie's Dad

"If he starts anything with me I'll just cloud up and rain all over him." Conagher

"You better ride out of here, Staples. An' leave that gun alone. You ain't fit to handle one. And don't you cross my trail again. I don't like bein' braced by no tin-horn." Conagher

"To be a man was to be responsible. It was as simple as that. To be a man was to build something, to try to make the world about him a bit easier to live in for himself and those who followed." Conagher

"it was the man who planted a tree, dug a well, or graded a road who mattered."

"Conagher had worked too hard too many times to like a thief or a vandal who would steal or destroy the efforts of other men."

Big Bill Knudsen on Progress

"Progress is only made when fear is overcome by curiosity. If you are curious enough, you will not have any fear."

William S. Knudsen

Elbert Hubbard

"Prison is a Socialist's Paradise, where equality prevails, everything is supplied, and competition is eliminated."

Charles R. Anderson

"Every law mandates more guns. Most laws now outlaw individual value choices and more voluntary cooperation among individuals."

Bad Deeds by Robert Bidinotto

2nd Great Thriller about Bringing Justice to Eco Terrorists -- Nominated for Conservative-Libertarian Fiction Book of the Year 2014

Charles Anderson on Hope

".... hope is contingent upon having the freedom to make your own value choices and make their achievement your personal dream. Without the dream, there is no hope. Without the value choice, there is no dream."

A Collapsing Predation, a Plea for Salvation

"These are just plain, ordinary people, Mr. Galt, " said Chick Morrison in a tone intended to project their abject humility. "They can't tell you what to do. They wouldn't know. They're merely begging you. They may be weak, helpless, blind, ignorant. But you, who are so intelligent and strong, can't you take pity on them? Can't you help them?" "By dropping my intelligence and following their blindness?" "They may be wrong, but they don't know any better!" "But I, who do, should obey them?"

From Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

Sen. Tom Coburn Addressing the Senate

"Your whole goal is to protect the United States of America, its Constitution and its liberties. It's not to provide benefits for your state. That's where we differ -- that's where my conflict with my colleagues has come. It's nice to be able to do things for your state, but that isn't our charge. Our charge is to protect the future of our country by upholding the Constitution." December 2014

James Madison on Laws

"It will be of little avail to the people ... if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood."

Yet this is exactly the sorry state of law in America today. Even the legislators whose full-time job is to make laws cannot read them before voting on them. How can it even be imagined that a small businessman can know the law and the voluminous regulations applied most especially and most vigorously to commercial endeavors? It cannot be so imagined, which makes it clear that the intent is to make every businessman a criminal precariously dependent upon the goodwill of those with power in the government.

Charles R. Anderson on Argument

"Observe which side resorts to the most vociferous name-calling and you are likely to have identified the side with the weaker argument and they know it."

From my statement in the Senate Minority Report of 2008 on Man-Made Global Warming Claims.

Ben Franklin

"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."

Ayn Rand on Force and Morality

"Force and mind are opposites; morality ends where a gun begins." From Atlas Shrugged

The Neverending Battle for Freedom

Requires a Knowledge of Moral and Political Principles

Winston Churchill

"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy."

Ludwig von Mises

"A society that chooses between capitalism and socialism does not choose between two social systems; it chooses between social cooperation and the disintegration of society. Socialism is not an alternative to capitalism; it is an alternative to any system under which men can live as human beings."

Ayn Rand on Truth Seeking

"The truth is not for all men, but only for those who seek it."

Charles R. Anderson, Ph.D.

Charles in Laboratory

Benno Schmidt, President of Yale, March 1991

"The most serious problems of freedom of expression in our society today exist on our campuses ... The assumption seems to be that the purpose of education is to induce correct opinion rather than to search for wisdom and to liberate the mind."

Tacitus, 56 - 120 A.D.

"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws. "

The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the state.

George Eliot

"The strongest principle of growth lies in human choice."

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

"Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' Vanity asks the question, 'Is it popular?' But conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular -- but one must take it because it's right."

Is that not all times?

Public Servant Tyrants

"The people must remain ever vigilant against tyrants masquerading as public servants." George Washington

Aristotle on Inequality

"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal."

Claiming unequal things equal in mathematics is obviously wrong, but so is claiming the equality of an individual with good character to an individual of bad character fraught with deleterious consequences.

Mencken on Public Education

"The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all: It is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality." Henry Louis Mencken (1880 - 1956)

Thomas Edison

"From his neck down, a man is worth a couple of dollars a day; from his neck up, he is worth anything his brain can invent."

Ayn Rand on Self-Assurance

"But why should you care what people will say? All you have to do is please yourself." From The Fountainhead

Frederick Douglass

“A man’s rights rest in three boxes: the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box.”

William S. Knudsen

"A conference is a gathering of guys that singly can do nothing and together decide nothing can be done."

Big Bill Knudsen was the manufacturing genius from the automotive industry who decided that U.S. WWII warfare production should be performed in the private sector with as little government interference as possible. U.S. production overwhelmed that of the Axis Powers as a result and the transition back to peace-time production was vastly eased. He is a little-recognized American Hero.

Margaret Thatcher

"Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy."

Pajama Boy for ObamaCare

I'll be an adult when I am 26. I have no job and live with Mommy. I will get a big subsidy when I go on ObamaCare. Good thing, because medical insurance costs for young men in my state are 2 to 3 times what they used to be. If my gender studies degree ever gets me a job, medical insurance will cost me a fortune. I'd rather just sit at home drinking hot chocolate and have Mommy feed me and do my laundry.

Ayn Rand on Lack of Self-Direction

"The man who lets a leader prescribe his course is a wreck being towed to the scrap heap." From The Fountainhead

Bastiat on Socialism

"Now, legal plunder can be committed in an infinite number of ways. Thus we have an infinite number of plans for organizing it: tariffs, protection, benefits, subsidies, encouragements, progressive taxation, public schools, guaranteed jobs, guaranteed profits, minimum wages, a right to relief, a right to the tools of labor, free credit, and so on, and so on. All these plans as a whole—with their common aim of legal plunder—constitute socialism." Frederic Bastiat, 1801-1850

James Madison

Property is "every thing to which a man may attach a value and have a right; and which leaves to every one else the like advantage."

"He has a property very dear to him in the safety and liberty of his person. He has equal property in the free use of his faculties and free choice of the objects on which to employ them."

"Government is instituted to protect property of every sort; as well that which lies in the various rights of individuals, as that which the term particularly expresses. This being the end of government, that alone is a just government, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own."

"That is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where arbitrary restrictions, exemptions, and monopolies deny to part of its citizens that free use of their faculties, and free choice of their occupations, which not only constitute their property in the general sense of the word; but are the means of acquiring property so called."

"If there be a government then which prides itself in maintaining the inviolability of property: which provides that none shall be taken directly even for public use without indemnification to the owner, and yet directly violates the property which individuals have in their opinions, their religion, their persons, and their faculties; nay more, which indirectly violates their property, in their actual possessions, in the labor that acquires their daily subsistence, and in the hallowed remnant of time which ought to relieve their fatigues and soothe their cares, ... such a government is not a pattern for the United States."

[Yet such a property violating government we now have.]

Obama According to Ron Pisaturo

"My opponents don’t have a plan for the economy, for education, for training, for retirement, for health care, for energy, for jobs, for wages, for investments, for diets. What kind of dictators are they?"

Ron Pisaturo's paraphrase of Obama's State of the Union Address in January 2014.

Starve the Kleptocracy and Tyranny

and Promote the General Welfare by Protecting Individual Rights

John Galt on the Battle

John Galt says in Galt's Speech in Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand:

Fight for the value of your person. Fight for the virtue of your pride. Fight for the essence of that which is man: for his sovereign rational mind. Fight with the radiant certainty and the absolute rectitude of knowing that yours is the Morality of Life and that yours is the battle for any achievement, any value, any grandeur, any goodness, any joy that has ever existed on this earth.

Groucho Marx

"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies."

Charles in Pensacola, FL

Boy with a Purpose

Andrew Jackson

"Distinctions in society will always exist under every just government. Equality of talents, of education, or of wealth can not be produced by human institutions. In the full enjoyment of the gifts of Heaven and the fruits of superior industry, economy, and virtue, every man is equally entitled to protection by law; but when the laws undertake to add to these natural and just advantages artificial distinctions, to grant titles, gratuities, and exclusive privileges, to make the rich richer and the potent more powerful, the humble members of society -- the farmers, mechanics, and laborers -- who have neither the time nor the means of securing like favors to themselves, have a right to complain of the injustice of their Government .... If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, [government] would be an unqualified blessing."

Jay Leno

"The White House admitted President Obama’s chief of staff had advance warning that the IRS was targeting conservative groups. President Obama says the first time he heard about the IRS and AP scandals was from the media. See, that’s why President Obama holds press conferences. It’s not to explain what’s going on. It’s to find out what’s going on."

Government is too big to be well-managed even by a competent manager. It is now apparent what happens when the chief executive is incompetent, but is convinced he is the chief Progressive Elitist.

Thomas Jefferson

"The democracy will cease when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not."

"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."

James I, King of Great Britain

"The state of monarchy is the supremest thing upon earth, for kings are not only God's lieutenants upon earth and sit upon God's throne, but even by God himself they are called gods."

There is historical precedent for the level of hubris of the Progressive Elitist rulers of our time. Just as James I tried to rule independently of Parliament with a claim of god-like knowledge, so does Obama rule independently of our Congress, secure in the belief that he too has a god-like knowledge of what is best for the People.

2nd Amendment Right

Calvin Coolidge

Reduced top income tax rate to 25%.Reduced the national debt.Balanced and reduced the budget.Vetoed 50 bills.

"I am for economy, and after that I am for more economy.”

“It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones.”

A Novel by Gen LaGreca

A Dream of Daring - A thickly plotted romantic novel

Jean Jacques Burlamaqui

"Natural liberty is the right, which nature gives to all mankind, of disposing of their persons and property, after the manner they judge most convenient to their happiness, on condition of their acting within the limits of the law of nature, and their not abusing it to the prejudice of their fellow men. To this right of liberty there is a reciprocal obligation corresponding, by which the law of nature binds all mankind to respect the liberty of other men, and not to disturb them in the use they make of it, so long as they do not abuse it."

Kail M. Padgitt, of the Tax Foundation produced the 2011 State Business Tax Climate Index in October. The report evaluates the effects of...

Pamela Geller

In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel, Defeat Jihad

Roger Scruton, 2006

The English law existed not to control the individual but to free him.

Laurence J. Peter

Against logic there is no armor like ignorance.

Ben Franklin - 2nd Amendment

"Democracy... Is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty... Is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote."

This is why every individual has the right to defend himself, as recognized in the 2nd Amendment of the Bill of Rights.

John Milton

"Where there is much desire to learn, here of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many opinions; for opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making."

Cato's Letters

"the power which every Man has over his own Actions, and his Right to enjoy the Fruits of his own Labour, Art, and Industry, as far as by it he hurts not the Society, or any Members of it, by taking from any Member, or by hindering him from enjoying what he himself enjoys."

They Would Rule the People

Rather than Serve the People

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

More Important than Ever

Atlas Shrugged, Part II

The Movie, Either-Or, Now on DVD

Democracy -- The Suicide

"Remember democracy never lasts long. It soonwastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide." John Adams, letter to John Taylor, April 15, 1814

Thomas Jefferson

"My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government."

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

Praise the Constitution

and Pass the Intellectual Ammunition

Ayn Rand: Philosophical Detection

What objectivity and the study of philosophy require is not an "open mind", but an active mind -- a mind able and eagerly willing to examine ideas, but to examine them critically. An active mind does not grant equal status to truth and falsehood; it does not remain floating forever in a stagnant vacuum of neutrality and uncertainty; by assuming the responsibility of judgment, it reaches firm convictions and holds to them. Since it is able to prove its convictions, an active mind achieves an unassailable certainty in confrontations with assailants -- a certainty untainted by spots of blind faith, approximation, evasion and fear.

If you keep an active mind, you will discover (assuming that you started with common-sense rationality) that every challenge you examine will strengthen your convictions, that the conscious, reasoned rejection of false theories will help you to clarify and amplify the true ones, that your ideological enemies will make you invulnerable by providing countless demonstrations of their own impotence.

Alan MacFarlane, 1978

The majority of ordinary people in England from at least the thirteenth century were rampant individualists, highly mobile both geographically and socially, economically rational, market-oriented and acquisitive, ego-centered in kinship and social life. Perhaps this is no surprise, for it makes them very like their descendants.

On Error and Judgment by Ayn Rand

An error made on your own is safer than ten truths accepted on faith, because the first leaves you the means to correct it, but the second destroys your capacity to distinguish truth from error.

Howard Roark at his trial:

"I came here to say that I do not recognize anyone's right to one minute of my life. Nor to any part of my energy. Nor to any achievement of mine. No matter who makes the claim, how large their number or how great their need." .....

"I wished to come and say that the integrity of a man's creative work is of greater importance than any charitable endeavor. Those of you who do not understand this are the men who're destroying the world." ...

"I recognize no obligations toward men except one: to respect their freedom and to take no part in a slave society."

Thomas Jefferson

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms."

"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."

Despite the fact that NASA scientists are among the foremost promoters of catastrophic global warming due to man's use of fossil fuels a...

California Venus

Rupert Schmid, 1864-1932

George Bernard Shaw

"A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul."

Paul's immorality is soon characteristic of the entire society, contributing evermore to strife and conflict and the discouragement of productive labor.

Fight Big Government

Reduce Spending

Thomas Paine on Principle

"A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice."

Limited Government Capitalism

is the only system that allows Individuals to make their own moral choices and to act upon them. Without individual moral choice, there is no morality and society is mean, brutal, envious, and depressing.

The Homage of Reason

"Question with boldness even the existence of God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear." Thomas Jefferson

Tocqueville

“a man’s admiration for absolute government is proportionate to the contempt he feels for those around him”.

First ObamaCare Stole Your Body

Minimum Family Plan = $20,000

In the name of the best within you,

do not sacrifice this world to those who are its worst. In the name of the values that keep you alive, do not let your vision of man be distorted by the ugly, the cowardly, the mindless in those who have never achieved his title. Do not lose your knowledge that man's proper estate is an upright posture, an intransigent mind and a step that travels unlimited roads. Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it's yours.

But to win it requires your total dedication and a total break with the world of your past, with the doctrine that man is a sacrificial animal who exists for the pleasure of others. Fight for the value of your person. Fight for the virtue of your pride. Fight for the essence of that which is man: for his sovereign rational mind. Fight with the radiant certainty and the absolute rectitude of knowing that yours is the Morality of Life and that yours is the battle for any achievement, any value, and grandeur, any goodness, any joy that has ever existed on this earth.

Immoral Government Health Care

Barack Hussein Obama

Consensus

Consensus means that everyone agrees to say collectively what no one believes individually"- Abba Eban

Obama's Socialism

Absolutely Childish, Banal Thinking

Rose Robbins - Singer/Songwriter

A Goddess would envy her voice.

Who is John Galt?

From John Galt's Speech to Americans in Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand:

"I am the man who loves his life. I am the man who does not sacrifice his love or his values."

"Man's mind is his basic tool of survival. Life is given to him, survival is not. His body is given to him, its sustenance is not. His mind is given to him, its content is not. To remain alive, he must act, and before he can act, he must know the nature and purpose of his action."

"But to think is an act of choice." ..... "In any hour and issue of your life, you are free to think or to evade that effort. But you are not free to escape from your nature, from the fact that reason is your means of survival -- so that for you, who are a human being, the question 'to be or not to be" is the question 'to think or not to think.'

"A being of volitional consciousness has no automatic course of behavior. He needs a code of values to guide his actions. 'Value' is that which one acts to gain and keep, 'virtue' is the action by which one gains and keeps it. 'Value' presupposes an answer to the question: of value to whom and for what? 'Value' presupposes a standard, a purpose and the necessity of action in the face of an alternative. Where there are no alternatives, no values are possible."

"There is only one fundamental alternative in the universe: existence or non-existence -- and it pertains to a single class of entities: to living organisms."

"Man has been called a rational being, but rationality is a matter of choice -- and the alternative his nature offers is: rational being or suicidal animal. Man has to be man -- by choice; he has to hold his life as a value -- by choice; he has to learn to sustain it -- by choice; he has to discover the values it requires and practice his virtues -- by choice."

"A code of values accepted by choice is a code of morality."

"Man's life is the standard of morality, but your own life is its purpose. If existence on earth is your goal, you must choose your actions and values by the standard of that which is proper to man -- for the purpose of preserving, fulfilling and enjoying the irreplaceable value which is your life."

"Happiness is the successful state of life, pain is an agent of death. Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values. A morality that dares to tell you to find happiness in the renunciation of your happiness -- to value the failure of your values -- is an insolent negation of morality. A doctrine that gives you, as an ideal, the role of sacrificial animal seeking slaughter on the altar of others, is giving you death as your standard. By the grace of reality and the nature of life, man -- every man -- is an end in himself, he exists for his own sake, and the achievement of his own happiness is his highest moral purpose."

Thus said John Galt, or shall we say Ayn Rand, the great novelist, philosopher, moralist, and Capitalism's greatest moral defender. The quoted sections above are an abridgment of John Galt's speech in the novel Atlas Shrugged. Between the quotes, no changes were made.

A Call to the Sons of Liberty

This is not the time for summer soldiers. This is a time of American crisis calling for winter soldiers.

John Paul Jones

I have not yet begun to fight! The image is from the Navy Memorial.

Thomas Jefferson:

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.

Charles R. Anderson, Ph. D.

The First Known Use of the Concept Freedom

Amagi, or Freedom, in the cuneiform shown above, is first known to have appeared in a clay document in 2300 BC in the Sumerian city-state of Lagash.

The Rational Mind Seeks Truth

in the critical observation and understanding of reality. Reality is primary, not man's wishes and whims.